Mother Nature (Minnesota bureau) greeted the opening of the 2008 baseball season with a daylong snowstorm that dumped up to six inches on the Twin Cities, resulting in school closings throughout the area.

In the climate-controlled Metrodome, though, it was the Angels’ offense that was shut down as they lost 3-2 to the Minnesota Twins on Monday.

Twins starter Livan Hernandez kept the Angels in check for seven innings with an assortment of off-speed and off-off-speed pitches. In one at-bat, he got Mike Napoli to swing and miss at a curveball that registered 59 mph on the stadium radar gun. He later got Howie Kendrick to bounce meekly back to the mound on a souped-up 60-mph version.

“He just moved the ball around, kept us off-balance all night,” Kendrick said. “That slow curveball? I probably could have swung four times at that pitch and still hit it off the end of the bat. He throws it and it comes out up here and it looks so big. It’s a pitch you know you shouldn’t swing at unless maybe you have two strikes. But it’s hard to lay off because you see it so good.”

The Angels got Hernandez in hot water just once, loading the bases with no outs in the fifth inning on singles by Casey Kotchman, Kendrick and Napoli.

That brought up Maicer Izturis, who led the Angels with a .406 average with runners in scoring position last season. He got ahead in the count, 2-and-0, but bounced into a double play that pushed across one run and short-circuited the potential big inning at the same time. Chone Figgins followed with a two-out single to drive in the Angels’ only other run and tie the game, 2-2.

“We knew what he was going to do,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said of Hernandez. “He wasn’t going to throw a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate, and he was going to throw off-speed on any count.

“We had the makings of something there (in the fifth inning). … You have to give Hernandez credit. We had Izzy up there with a 2-and-0 count. He got a pitch to hit. He just rolled over it.”

Angels starter Jered Weaver found himself pitching out of trouble more often than Hernandez. He allowed eight hits in his 6<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>3 innings and had runners in scoring position in five of the first six innings.

Making his first opening-day start, Weaver said he had “jitters” early in the game. Against Twins leadoff man Carlos Gomez in the first inning, Weaver belly-flopped on the turf in foul territory, diving for a ball that deflected off a speaker behind the plate – only to be informed by plate umpire Charlie Reliford that the ball was not in play.

He then gave up a leadoff double to Gomez and an RBI single by Joe Mauer.

The centerpiece of the Johan Santana trade with the Mets and Torii Hunter’s replacement in center field, Gomez proved to be a thorn in Weaver’s side all game, walking twice in addition to the double, scoring two runs and stealing two bases.

“He’s no Torii Hunter, but he’s doing alright,” Weaver said sheepishly after the game.

“They got themselves a player there,” Hunter himself said. “He’s an athlete.”

Gomez provided the game’s decisive moment in the bottom of the fifth inning when Weaver walked him on five pitches to start the inning.

“I obviously didn’t want to walk him there,” Weaver said. “I was disappointed with myself. The team had just got a couple (runs) to tie it up, and I went back out there and gave one up. Leadoff walks are obviously going to kill you.”

After walking, Gomez stole second – one of four steals for the Twins in the game – and moved to third on a ground out. With the infield in, Michael Cuddyer bounced a single into left field to drive in the go-ahead run.

WELCOME HOME

Twins fans gave Torii Hunter a warm reception as he returned to the Teflon-topped dome he called home for the first 10 years of his major-league career.

“Man, I can’t even explain what was going through my mind,” Hunter said after going 0 for 4 in the Angels’ 3-2 season-opening loss to the Twins. “It was just weird … walking up on the other side, walking out to the (foul) line from the other dugout.

“I’m just glad this day is over. … I was pretty amped up. I think I did try to do too much, trying to hit that home run. But that’s my job – hit the ball hard.”

Bill Plunkett has covered everything from rodeo to Super Bowls to boxing (yeah, I was there the night Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off) during a career that started far too long ago to mention and eventually brought him to the OC some time last century (1999 actually). He has been covering Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register since 2003, spending time on both the Angels and Dodgers beats.

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